Zuniceratops

Zuniceratops was a transitional horned dinosaur that lived in what is now New Mexico during the Turonian stage of the Late Cretaceous. Measuring around two metres in length, it was roughly the size of a sheep and significantly smaller than later horned behemoths. Its fossil remains were famously spotted in 1996 by eight-year-old Christopher Wolfe, the son of palaeontologist Douglas Wolfe. Zuniceratops provides a crucial evolutionary link between earlier, hornless neoceratopsians and the massive ceratopsid dinosaurs. Unlike its primitive cousins, it bore distinct postorbital brow horns alongside a modest neck frill, although it still retained single-rooted teeth rather than the complex batteries seen in later ceratopsids.

It is the earliest known ceratopsian discovered to possess well-developed brow horns.

Where and when

Zuniceratops lived in the Late Cretaceous, from 93 to 90 million years ago (Turonian age). Its remains come from United States, in the Moreno Hill Formation.

The numbers

Length 2.1 m (estimates run from 2 to 2.2 m). Mass about 130 kg. Hip height about 0.8 m. That is 1.2 human-lengths, or 0.19 of a double-decker bus. These are estimates from partial skeleton; fields marked estimated by the site are length, mass, hip height.

Compare Zuniceratops with a bus Place on the timeline